


(always the same) running from something larger than yourself.

by flustraaa



Series: it isn’t over yet, it’s just begun. [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), Car Accidents, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Sokka (Avatar), Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Sokka (Avatar), Protective Zuko (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Sokka (avatar) needs therapy, Zuko (Avatar) Needs Therapy, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), no beta we die like jet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28904460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flustraaa/pseuds/flustraaa
Summary: sokka looks at the quiet kid at the back of his class. the kid who has the burn scar and stories to tell, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, someone will finally understand what it feels like to have loved and lost.(or,unpacking trauma in five parts. spoiler, gertrude is a mad lad).
Relationships: Hakoda & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar) & Original Character(s)
Series: it isn’t over yet, it’s just begun. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119551
Comments: 8
Kudos: 200





	(always the same) running from something larger than yourself.

_** i. ** _

* * *

Sokka is eight when his mother dies. He had been sitting in the little odd block of time that his school had dedicated to English and reading. He is eight, and he is sitting next to his friend named after the moon, and he is thinking about what book his mother will read to him and his baby sister tonight.

Sokka is eight when the white, and incredibly outdated, phone rings on his teachers desk. He is eight when he watches Miss Lee’s face fall. And he is eight when something terribly heavy settles in the pit of the his stomach.

“Sokka,” she calls quietly, setting the phone down as she hands the class over to their student teacher. “Sweetheart, come with me. We need to talk about something.”

The class choruses the terrible “ooh” sound in the way eight year olds do when someone is going to get wrecked by the principal, and Sokka’s eyes burn as he asks, “Am I in trouble?”

“No, Darling. Your father is here to pick you up, but I think we should go somewhere else before we talk.”

He throws a look at Yue, and she sends him the reassuring smile that only she can muster. He thinks, as long as Yue believes that everything is fine, he can too. He’s strong, and resilient, and his dad says that he has a warriors heart beating under his rib cage. 

“Bye Sokka,” one of his friends calls, as if he knows that the moment he hears of his mother, he’ll never be the same Sokka again.

Miss Lee can’t really meet his eyes as she hands him his absolutely rad lunch box, the one with Batman splayed across the front.

Maybe he just has a dentist appointment— he’s meant to get braces next year. Mom always tells him that he’s growing up too fast anyways. That’s probably it.

But then her arms are wrapped around him and his baby sister is holding him like she knows something he doesn’t. Like any good big brother with the spidey-sense he has, he offers her a piggy back and together they walk down the main hallway to the office.

He knows something is wrong when Hakoda looks at him with red rimmed, empty eyes.

“Hey, Socks.” His eyes flicker to Katara who’s taken residence at his side, her hand squeezing the life from his own. “Hey, Kat. What do you two think about getting some ice cream? We can go get blue moon and superman at that cool place with the cow themed diner, yeah?”

Sokka’s eyes narrow suspiciously, and he can’t explain how he knows what’s wrong— until he realises that this is exactly what his parents had done when their Ataatattiara had died.

“Is mom dead?” He asks suddenly, and Katara slaps him hard in the shoulder.

“Sokka! That’s not funny!” But Sokka’s eyes don’t waiver from his father, borderline defiant as he dares him to lie.

Later, Sokka will sit in his high school Latin class, staring at the boy with the burn scar from across the room; he will stare at him, and he will think, non fortuna audentes iuvat. He will think, fortune does not favour the bold. 

But for now, trivial confidence overwhelms and he thinks that if he faces this head on then maybe— maybe, he can change the plot of the story. He can be Uncle Bato, and his life can be the stories he’s told before bed.

His father still hasn’t answered— eyes flickering away as Sokka’s eyes narrow.

Hakoda can’t help but think that Sokka was always so smart— so much more than he wasn’t given credit for. So he answers, nodding slightly as he looks away.

Katara sobs, nearly knocking her brother over with the force she barrels into him with— and when Hakoda looks up, Sokka only stares at the ground.

He’s silent, eyes misty— and it’s in that moment Hakoda understands that his son thinks he needs to be strong— that he thinks he needs to be the one that holds the family together now.

“Sokka,” Hakoda states, all eyes in the room locked on the child who refuses to shed a tear for his mother. The mother who will no longer tuck him in, or hold him close when he has a nightmare. “Look at me.”

Small brows come together, pulled tightly— in a way that leaves wrinkles that an eight year old should never have. His arms wrap tightly around his sister as he raises his eyes from the floor to meet a twin pair of cerulean irises. 

“It is okay to cry. You don’t have to be strong for your sister, your grandmother, or I. You are my son, and I will take care of you and love you no matter what.”

Traitorous tears scorch down his own face as he looks at the pair of siblings who already look so much like their mother. A wailing cry threatens to swallow him whole when Sokka shakes his head.

He’s not quite sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he was greeted with. The confident, but painfully hoarse words of, “We take care of each other. Without mom, we gotta take care of you too.”

“When did you get to be so grown up?” Hakoda asks despite himself, and Sokka sniffs quietly, shoving a sleeved hand under his nose.

“I think,” he offers, in lieu of an actual responseor real emotion, “I would like that ice-cream now.”

Later, Hakoda will watch the way the young woman that scoops the ice-cream seems to realise something incredibly troubling has happened— and she will tell Katara that she loves the way she does her hair— and she will tell Sokka she also like superman ice-cream.

Sokka will tell her a half-assed knock knock joke about superman in response, and before Hakoda can pay, she’ll tell him it’s on the house.

Hakoda will nearly start crying again, tipping her with a ten dollar bill and she’ll just send him a half smile that says: I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry despite it.

Sokka will pick at his ice cream, with a normal spoon instead of the tester spoon he usually carries for as as long as he can— and Katara will steal a bite of his before melting into her brothers side.

Hakoda will later ask him if he wants to go to therapy, and Sokka will say it’s not worth it. He will pretend that an eight year old knows how to compartmentalise better than Hakoda can at twenty nine, and he will only agree to sleep in Hakoda’s bed at night if he wakes screaming from nightmares.

Because Sokka has never been one to let people know how he hurts— he has only been one to cover his deepest emotions with a smile. 

_** ii. ** _

* * *

Zuko is eleven when his mother disappears, eleven when the police tell him (and his not-so-family) that they have reason to believe that the body that had washed up on shore was hers. His father tells the police it’s her— but Zuko knows his mothers smile, and the one on the body is not hers. 

He is eleven when he realises that this was his fathers way of making him realise that to disagree is to disobey, and to disobey is to die. 

He was four when he’d learned that though, never step out of line, never disappoint. But he is teetering on the edge of twelve when his father makes a motion to lowers the conditions and wages he pays to his workers— and Zuko refuses to stand for it.

It is on Zuko’s thirteenth birthday that his father holds his face to the gas stove of their kitchen, and lights it with flames. He is thirteen when his father tells him that pain is the only punishment adequate enough for the utter waste of space that is his eldest and only son. 

He’s thirteen and a half when he wakes up in a hospital bed, his breath is hitching as he tries to remember what breath without the taste of ash or the smell of burning skin is like. He’s thirteen in a half when he learns to walk again, he’s thirteen and a half when he learns that his uncle with always be there for him. 

He’s fourteen when he speaks again, the words spilling from the vocal chords damaged by his screams. “I know it’s my fault. I’m so sorry. I am your loyal—“

The doctor looks as horrified as Iroh does, and he snaps his mouth shut— fearing punishment for scaring the only family he has left. 

He hears them speak later. He hears Doctor Hu— the one who asks him to call her Tori— suggest to his uncle that they sue his father, and get Zuko therapy. He hears her recommend the names of practitioners who will let his uncle sit in with him for the session. 

And suddenly, he wonders if not every adult wants him dead. But the echoes of laughter from the night his father forced him to burn in his head. 

* * *

He sits in the court room, his father dressed in a suit and hair tied up neatly as Zuko struggles to drag his sweat clad hands down his dress pants. 

He can’t breathe with the tie suffocating him, and he wants to know what happened to Azula, and he wants to know why his father looks so smug when Zuko’s face is evidence of his cruelty. 

“Zuko?” The lawyer asks, and suddenly he looks so very guilty to be defending Ozai. 

His words are doing that stupid lisp thing that Ozai had once threatened to beat out of him, and he can’t get through a full sentence without stuttering. His hands are gripping the chair so hard he feels like his knuckles are going to break. 

Memories shove dangerously from where they’ve been buried, threatening to ruin the progress he’s made in the last year and a half. 

After all, he thinks, it’s only been a year an a half. He’s still the scared child Ozai always told him he was, and no matter what reassuring look Iroh gives him— he still chokes on his words. 

The lawyer takes a hesitant step forward, “did you hear me?” 

“Do you have kids?” Zuko asks suddenly, surprising himself. His tongue catches on the end of kids with a quiet lisp, but it doesn’t deter him. “Sir?” 

It’s clear no one expects it— he can see it in the once cold green eyes across from him that this match is almost over— that the lawyer can’t begin to offer any protections. 

The lawyer doesn’t speak, and Zuko presses forward, voice hoarse. “My father held my face to a stove, and lit it on fire.” 

Tears well in his eyes, and the courtroom holds their breath as they begin to fall. They scorch clear pathways down his cheeks, and from the crowd he sees his therapist— he sees the doctor that once helped him with his burns— he sees his uncle. 

“My therapist told me that it was wrong, and I never believed her.” He runs a hand over his good eye, avoiding the charges remains of the left side of his face. “What I know is that I spent six months learning how to balance again.” 

His breaths are catching in his throat, and he prays to the spirits that he’s still coherent as he speaks. “I spent months learning how to walk again, and learning how to talk again. There are monsters in all of us, but not all of us become monsters. Not all of us become my f— not all of us become Ozai.” 

He’s underwater. He can’t breathe, and he’s not floating— but the tides aren’t pulling him under either. 

Iroh watches his nephew crumble— watches his child crumble, and sends a desperate look to the judge. 

“Do you have anything else to add?” 

The room holds their breath, watching as the green eyed monster looks at the shaking boy on the witness stand— and at once he shakes his head. “No, your honour. I don’t.” 

He sends a look to Ozai, and in that moment he realises it’s over. He is sentenced to life without parole, and Zuko wakes up on the wooden bench with his head in Iroh’s lap. 

“Uncle?” He jolts, realising this in not the witness stand— he wonders if he ruined his only shot at fighting the wrongdoings of his father. 

Iroh only nods, combing a hair through the bun made sloppy with panic. “We won, my dear boy. He’ll never lay a hand on you again.” 

_** iii. ** _

* * *

“Hi Zuko.” He likes Gertrude. She’s old-ish and sweet and offers him candy when he walks into her office. He hated Steve. Steve didn’t let him use the fuck word when he got worked up. “Can you give me a number today, kid?” 

Gertrude, has electric pink hair and smile lines for days. Gertrude, never raises her voice at him or tells him that his emotions mean something deeper. Zuko likes books, but he is not one to be read at his therapists pleasure. 

“Six?” He offers— trying to be optimistic. He begins unwrapping a sucker prior to sitting down on the couch. “I think I did well on my math test, but I had a panic attack first period.” 

“Is that your Latin class?” She gives him the opportunity to change the subject, but looks relieved when he doesn’t take it. 

“Yeah.” He crosses an arm over his stomach, the free one twirling the stem of his lollipop. It’s cherry and heart shaped, and enough to make him want to roll his eyes. “There was this kid named Sokka in my class. He skipped a grade, so he’s in my class. Whatever, anyways, apparently this kid has also had a panic attack because next thing I know he’s sitting beside me and helping me do breathing counts.” 

He pauses, gauging Gertrude’s face for any semblance of recognition at all. She’s a blank slate, and if he’s being honest, it pisses him off a little. 

“Anyways, after the... y’know, he walked with me to the nurses office. We sat in there for a while, and after a while he just kinda looked at me and told me he knew what to do because he used to get them after his mom died.” 

Zuko goes silent for a long time, staring at a chip in the wall as his eyebrows furrow together— his fingers absently scratch at the edge of his burn before he recognises the self destructive habit. He sends Gertrude a guilty look, but she just smiles at him. The look says she proud of his growth and of his ability to realise what he’s doing. 

This is part of the reason he loves her. She never judges him— she never pretends to know things she doesn’t understand about his life. 

“Anyways. I told him that my mom died— or went missing at least, when I was younger. We talked for a really long time, and he asked if I wanted to hang out sometime.” 

“And what did you say?” There’s so much hope in her voice, that Zuko feels safe. These are the only four walls outside of his Uncle’s house that feel safe. 

Zuko, despite himself, smiles. “I said sure. I’m going to his house on Saturday to play Super Smash Bros.” 

And then she asks, “and how does that make you feel?” 

Zuko groans, “you sound like fucking _Steve_.” 

* * *

“You know, Gertrude,” Sokka murmurs, laying down on the comfortable couch in his therapists office. “There’s this kid at school who I thought was a total asshat, right?”

Sokka takes great pleasure in the chortle Gertrude lets out. She takes off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose, inquiring, “what changed your mind, kiddo?”

“Today, he had a panic attack,” Sokka offers, cerulean irises focused on the ceiling as he absently twists a fidget spinner between his fingers. “One second he’s fine. He sitting across the room— we’re doing a translation about Gaius Mucius Scaevola, and the next thing I know the doors open and he’s sitting against the the bathroom wall with his hands pressed against the floor.” 

“Scaevola,” she echos, thoughtfully, eyebrows coming together as Sokka’s lips pull into a grim line.

“Yeah. Lefty. The guy who burnt his right hand in a fire to show he was honourable and destined for glory.” He brings his free hand to his face. “The guy has a nasty burn scar over the left side of his face. I can’t imagine that, my dude, Scaevola, brought him good memories.”

“Interesting.” she hums quietly, and Sokka suddenly realised that the familiar head of shaggy hair that had been buried in a book in the corner on his way in was probably exactly who he thought it was.

“Zuko is one of your patients, and I’m an idiot.” He declares, ignoring the shit eating grin on Gertrude’s face. “Anyways. Tell me Gertrude, did he say I’m funny at least?”

“Sokka, you have the comedic ability of the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.”

“Did you just reduce me to the fucking comedic relief in the plot that Shakespeare stole and rebranded from _Pyramus and Thisbee_?” He throws an arm over his eyes. “I hate it here.” 

“Since when do you read?” Gertrude scoffs, clearly trying to ease the tension thats built in Sokka’s shoulders. 

Sokka rolls his eyes, “since I was five, keep up. I had to skip a grade somehow.” 

Gertrude was wrong, he’s far more funny than the nurse in Shakespeare— but if she tells him that, it’ll go straight to his head.

“You’re not half bad Gertrude. Not half bad.” 

Gertrude snorts, and suddenly finds herself thinking that maybe these two idiots found each other for a reason. 

_** iv. ** _

* * *

Sokka’s first thought when he wakes up in a car, upside down, is that he’s having the nightmare again. He looks around for his mom, the one that always gets ripped away in the end— before realising he’s not in the car he usually is.

And there’s a lot more pain and yelling then there has ever been before. Belatedly he thinks, _damn, it’s the remix._

But his breath stops in his chest when he realises that he doesn’t remember falling asleep— and he definitely remembers a pair of headlights driving on the wrong side of the street.

“Fuck!” he hisses, reaching up for his seatbelt and crying out when his back slams against the roof of the car, glass digging painfully into his shoulders and back. “Zuko?”

He finds his friend hanging limply from the the seat— he looks to be fine, with the exception of the gash in his forehead, and the bruising swelling around it.

They’re both definitely concussed, but Sokka forces himself to calm down, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides.

He’s not going to lose Zuko, and absolutely not in the way he lost his mom.

“Can you hear me?” He hears a paramedic— or maybe a firefighter call out to them, and as he helps shimmy Zuko free from his seatbelt he calls back a confirmation.

“Yeah!” He takes a few deep breaths, gauging where the best place to get out is— but if he’s being honest he can’t really think straight beyond the pounding of his head. “I’m awake— I think I broke my leg— but Zuko isn’t.”

“Okay! We’re working on the door, stay put.”

Sokka listens, and desperately tries to fight offthe exhaustion that pulls at him.He wakes to hands wrapping his leg in a splint, Zuko lying beside him with his head lulled in the opposite direction.

“Is he okay?” The paramedic doesn’t startle like he’d expect, simply glancing at Sokka with warm brown eyes.

“He’s banged up, but he’s steady. You both have some nasty concussions— but I’ve never seen a car get thrown like that and have the people inside come out as okay as you.”

“What about—“ the words die in his throat as he catches sight of the black bag beside him. He forces himself to close his eyes and take some deep breaths.

“It was a DUI.” The paramedic offers carefully, as if it’ll make Sokka feel better. As if it’ll change the fact that destruction seems to follow him everywhere. “It wasn’t anything you did.”

“Right.” Sokka chokes out, sending another glance at Zuko. “You promise he’s okay?”

He offers a pinky, and Sokka takes it for the promise it is. “He woke up earlier, he asked about you and passed out again.”

There’s something else in his eyes, but Sokka can’t bring himself to question it— he’s too scared to know.

And when he catches sight of the charred car on the side of the road— he thinks he knows more than he bargained for. 

_** v. ** _

* * *

He remembers fire, and his chest aches with flashes of Sokka beside him, unconscious. Beyond that, more easily, come the smell of antiseptic fills the room, and Zuko wakes to his forehead roaring with pain as takes in a deep breath.

As he comes to, he remembers the smell of burned skin and feels tightness in the left side of his face. And suddenly, he feels more scared than he had when his face had been held to the flame.

The idea of having to learn everything all over again breaks something deep within him, something he didn’t know that could be hurt again. 

If he has to learn again, if this had all been a dream than his father is still out to get him, Sokka is just a memory, and he’ll have to heal all over again.

He’s burning all over again. He’s all alone, and he’s burning again. His father has burned him alive, and his Uncle’s snores fill the room as they had before.

It was all a dream— and he’s going to have to learn everything again. Sokka does exist, his father still roams— and he’s still a failure.

Zuko chokes, and a hand finds his, “Zu, hey.” 

His eyes snap open, gasping as his hand fumbles over the on his chest, hand grasping as he realises that Sokka is hovering over him with wide blue eyes.

“Fuck.” he grits, letting his eyes close as he relaxes against the pillow. “You scared me, holy shit.”

“I’m sorry.” Sokka croaks, cerulean eyes suspiciously wet as he drops his forehead against the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?” Zuko mumbles, brows coming together before letting out a hiss of pain. “ _Shit_.”

And then, golden eyes focus on the crutches leant against the wall, the little gashes along his arms, and the stitches along his eyebrow bringing flashes back.

And so he repeats, “what happened?”

“Our car got flipped.” Sokka swallows hard, not daring to lift his head from the edge of the bed. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

And despite it all, Sokka’s heart lurches when Zuko pushes himself to sit, “Sokka, look at me.”

And it’s so painfully similar to the way his father had called his attention the day his mom died almost a decade ago (nine years, eight months, and fifteen days. But who’s counting?). 

Cerulean locks on aureus coloured optics, and suddenly Sokka realises that he doesn’t need to explain his guilt— Zuko understands him, and Zuko isn’t upset.

“When my mom died I told myself I’d never get my driver’s license,” Sokka sighs, dragging a hand over his face as Zuko squeezes his hand. “I told myself I’d never start driving, because I didn’t want to have the power to do something that could take someone’s mom away from them. And then Gertrude told me getting my license would help me heal. And now someone’s dead, and you’re in the hospital.”

Zuko doesn’t tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t try to quell him or tell his he’s going to be fine. Zuko understands, and it’s such an odd thing to feel so seen.

“The paramedics said that it wasn’t my fault. They said that the guy was under the influence, and that it wasn’t my fault. But it doesn’t feel like that.”

Instead of answering, Zuko shuffles to the side, patting beside him. Carefully, Sokka pulls himself up to the bed, crawling under the blanket that he best friend raises for him.

Instead, he says. “I don’t blame you. I’m here to listen when you need me.”

Sokka rests his head on Zuko’s shoulder, and suddenly he feels as though there’s not enough time to tell Zuko about the things he’s seen.

Instead he offers him, “the day my mom died, dad pulled us out of class and offered us ice-cream. All my teachers were looking at me like someone killed my dog in front of me, and I remember looking at my dad and asking if mom had died.”

“He wouldn’t answer me for the longest time.” he continues on, closing his eyes as he sinks into the shitty mattress with his back. “It felt like forever. Finally, he’d just nodded and we got ice-cream after. He asked me if I wanted to go to therapy, and I said no. I thought that going to therapy was a weakness. I thought I had to be the strong for my dad.”

Zuko nods thoughtfully, like he understands. Sokka thinks, if anyone understands, it’s him.

“I woke up on the cement, and I looked to my side and I thought you were dead.” He mumbles, “I thought you were dead, and I thought it’s my fault.”

He knows that the two things don’t line up, but it clear that Zuko is following— he always does. 

“You know,” Zuko says after a moment, voice placid and warm as if Sokka hadn’t dumped his childhood trauma on him mere seconds ago. “I always wondered how Gertrude knew about me having a panic attack over a reading comprehension question on Scaevola. I cant believe you tattled on me to my therapist.”

“Hey!” Sokka’s voice cracks on his tears. He swallows thickly before continuing. “We were having a moment.”

“I know.” Zuko sighs, ruffling Sokka’s hair.

Sokka is positive Zuko does know. He knows him, and he knows how to get him off of his self destructive path.

“I’m here for you.” He repeats, “I’m always going to be here. You’re stuck with me, now. Trauma juice is non-transferable.”

“The drink of champions.”

“Uh— I dunno about that one.” Zuko snorts, letting his head fall onto the wall behind him. “Can we nap until someone forces us to get out of here?”

“Now,” Sokka grins, wiping at his eyes. “You’re talking.”

**Author's Note:**

> please be kind to yourself and hydrate. i hope you have a wonderful day. please comment and tell me what you thought.


End file.
